If you want to develop a sales team that dominates its market, you’ll go out of your way to nurture and fan the flames of conflict whenever they arise, says consultant Paul McCord (powerreferralselling.com).
Positive change comes from challenging the status quo. It comes when men and women have the courage to question how the organization is conducting its business and how it is treating its customers, employees and vendors. The lower ranks within an organization must be able to challenge the decisions from on high based on the reality they encounter in the real world, which is often far removed from the executive suite.
Unfortunately, this sort of constructive conflict often gets discouraged because it’s lumped in with negative conflict — me-oriented conflict that can be rooted in personality differences and isn’t intended to improve the company overall.
Good leaders learn to spot the differences between constructive conflict and destructive differences and allow the constructive challenges and differences of opinion to produce valuable discussions that lead to important change.
